On the autobahn between Nuremberg and Munich. Overlooking a bombed out bridge on the autobahn, Melvin Shaffer with camera and two helpers from a signal corps unit. They were on loan to me to photograph the Dachau concentration camp. One of the...

The railway station at Stuttgart in late April 1945. Railway cars within the destroyed structure provided shelter for hundreds of persons, displaced people, German soldiers waiting to surrender. Even we spent two nights here while waiting for...

A fragment of red marble picked up in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. This piece came from a pile of rubble created by a bomb, which had dropped straight down through a ceiling fixture and into the main entrance hallway.

A fragment of red marble picked up in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. This piece came from a pile of rubble created by a bomb, which had dropped straight down through a ceiling fixture and into the main entrance hallway.

Ralph Creer and Melvin Shaffer at the entrance to the Reich Chancellery, May 1945. Debris had been removed from the entrance by the Russians in order to enter and search for Hitler and his government. The famous bunker was here and the smell of...

The remains of a dome over the main entrance hall of the Chancellery, which had suffered a direct hit by a falling bomb. This bomb alone caused most of the damage inside the building; some effort had been made by the Russians not to destroy the...

This photograph of buildings near the Chancellery, on the Unter den Linden, shows the efficiency of both the population and the Russian forces that had cleared the streets for military traffic and for the delivery of essential goods to the...

Within a few days of the end of the war, the city of Kassel was digging itself out. This was the most destroyed city I encountered. There were no useable buildings left. People had made entrances to cellars and were using them as housing. Water...

This view I call the "Hitler Door" because it is at the rear of the Chancellery and is the one through which you went before going down into the underground headquarters. Out and to the left was the courtyard wherein the cremation of Hitler took...

These photographs, made in the town park of Braunschweig, are truly extraordinary in their depiction of the aftermath of war. This area, while not totally demolished, had been the center of a battle which controlled the approach to Berlin. Evidence...

The Bismarck Statue, Berlin, late May 1945. In contrast to most other soldiers, Americans generally were gawking tourists and the US Army made serious efforts to give opportunities for sight-seeing whenever it could. Most combat soldiers, though,...

These photographs, made in the town park of Braunschweig, are truly extraordinary in their depiction of the aftermath of war. This area, while not totally demolished, had been the center of a battle which controlled the approach to Berlin. Evidence...

Along the Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate. The German civilians frequently walked and stared with an expression of agony and despair on their faces. While my German was limited I could frequently make out remarks such as,"Oh this was...

A panorama near the Brandenburg Gate. I believe the domed building is the opera house. The opera made an astonishing effort to get back into production and before the end of May and even gave a performance of a Wagnerian opera which I was invited...

By early June the Berlin population was showing amazing resilience. A sports car was brought out, some buses were running and people were out in their "Sunday best." Their demeanor had also changed. They had some utility service restored; they had...